Voices Carry Page 24

  “I hate mice,” Crystal muttered. “I’ll bet there are tons of them in here. Just the thought of what could be lurking around here makes my skin crawl.”

  “Look down there.” Genna pointed to the far end of the long, narrow room.

  Piles of mattresses, apparently stripped from the cabins, littered the floor. Some bore charred evidence of having been set on fire. Across one wall, the names Courtney and TJ had been written in huge red letters.

  “Wonder if Courtney and TJ’s parents know they’ve been whooping it up in the old camp dining hall,” Crystal mused.

  “Judging by the mountain of beer cans over there,” Genna pointed behind them, “I’d say they weren’t alone.”

  She walked over and peered at the aluminum pyramid that stood against one wall, then said, “Looks like we missed the party by months, if not longer, judging by the amount of dust on the cans. I guess whoever was using this place as a hangout either moved away or outgrew it.”

  “Maybe they were summer people who didn’t come back,” Crystal offered.

  “Maybe. Frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t evidence of more recent intrusion. You’d think a place like this would be a magnet for the local kids.” Genna brushed the dust from her hands onto her jeans. “Seen enough in here?”

  “Yes.” Crystal nodded.

  “Where do you want to go next?” Genna asked once they had passed back through the kitchen and out into the what had once been the cook’s kitchen garden, now gone to weeds.

  “I guess down there,” Crystal pointed in the direction of the cabins.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I came here to exorcise this devil, Genna. Might as well get it all out of my system.”

  Without speaking, they walked close to one another through overgrown shrubs and entered onto a clearing.

  Once white-washed clapboard cabins stood in a semicircle, like long, embracing arms that held a grassy clearing. In the center stood a pile of stone, once a podium of sorts from which the counselors addressed their young charges three times each day: early morning, noon, and evening. The grass, once lush and thick, now grew in sparse patches, as the dense canopy of surrounding trees had meshed quite solidly overhead.

  “Dear Lord, it’s so damned creepy,” Crystal whispered.

  Behind them a screen door, nudged by the wind, banged loudly, startling them both.

  “SHIT!” Genna exclaimed, then laughed nervously and turned to look back at the cabins that stood in a perfect arc behind them.

  It seemed that, over the years, the woods had grown closer, close enough to breathe down the necks of the deserted cabins. Peeling paint left weathered streaks across the front walls, and masses of assorted vines crept up broken steps and across sagging porches to climb toward shingled roofs. Windows were broken out here and there, and doors bore the remains of jagged screens.

  And to the right of each door, a large number had been hastily—and sloppily—painted on the wall in watery black that dripped down the wall like afterthoughts.

  “Where do you suppose those numbers came from?” Crystal pointed to the number that defaced the cabin closest to them.

  “The state police painted them, as a means of identifying the crime scenes by cabin,” Genna said without emotion.

  “Crime scenes,” Crystal repeated softly, as if she’d never thought of what had happened there in those terms before.

  “The girls who testified used the numbers when they spoke with the detectives and told them which of the cabins they’d been taken from.” Genna pointed straight ahead. “Cabin number five. Mine.”

  She turned her head briskly and pointed to the small building that was set apart slightly from the others and that bore a 12.

  “The infirmary. The girls who testified said that after he’d raped them, he’d taken them to the infirmary and left them for Sister Anna to care for in the morning.”

  “I lost count of the number of times I. . .” Crystal shook her head and turned back toward the clearing.

  Genna put an arm around her sister’s shoulder to comfort her. “Do you think Sister Anna knew?” she asked.

  “Sure, she knew.” Crystal nodded. “She’d give us aspirin for our ‘headaches’ and something to make us sleep, but she had to have known what had happened to us. She always brought extra desserts when we stayed there. As if an extra slice of cake could make up for having been abused by her wacko brother.”

  “Was she Michael’s real sister?”

  “I thought she was, but I don’t know for sure,” Crystal conceded. “Did it come out at the trial?”

  “Sister Anna didn’t testify, as I remember,” Genna told her.

  “How could she not testify?” Chrissie frowned.

  “I think they couldn’t find her. I don’t remember exactly. It was a long time ago, and they didn’t let me in the courtroom until it was my turn to take the witness stand.”

  A sharp breeze pushed through the trees, rustling the leaves noisily and bending the branches slightly with its force. A rumble nearby caused them both to jump, then laugh uneasily.

  “I think it’s time to leave,” Genna said.

  “I just want to see the track and maybe the soccer fields.”

  “We’d better make it fast, then. That storm is moving in pretty quickly.”

  “I think the path used to be over there somewhere. . .” Crystal started off to the right, then stopped and pointed, saying, “Well, it looks like it still is. Imagine that.”

  The shrubs at the edge of the woods were bent and angled, the brush tamped down carelessly, as if, sometime in the not too distant past, someone had tread there.

  “Maybe Courtney and TJ ran a few laps before they retired to the dining hall for a couple of cold ones,” Genna said dryly.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to find that kids were using the sports fields, Gen. I remember the facilities as being pretty nice.”

  “I never got to play on them too much. Except for softball. You had to be ten to play on the soccer team,” Genna recalled as she followed her sister down the narrow path.

  An enormous crack of thunder shattered the silence.

  “On second thought, maybe we’ve seen enough for one day.” Crystal did an immediate about-face and grabbed Genna’s arm. “We can always come back to see the soccer field another time.”

  “I take it you’re ready to leave.”

  “More than ready.” Crystal tugged on Genna’s arm to hurry her along.

  “Don’t like thunder, eh?” Genna said as they came back up the hill.

  “Not when it’s that close,” Chrissie shook her head. “And look, over there, at the lightning.”

  Ragged streaks flashed across the ever-darkening sky, and thunder rolled all around them.

  “If we hurry, we might make it to the car before the rain. . .” Genna held up a hand. “Oops, too late, here it comes. Looks like we’ll have to make a run for it.”

  They ran through the clearing, past the cabins, just as the first fat drops began to fall like long-held tears. Crystal reached the passenger side and hopped in, slamming the door behind her. Genna hurried behind the car, then stopped, tilting her head, as if listening for a sound she wasn’t sure she’d heard. As a child, she’d believed the woods around the camp were haunted. Night after night, she’d thought she’d heard cries drifting through the dark.

  Funny, she thought as she looked back toward the long-neglected buildings, even now, she could swear she heard those anguished voices, little more than whispers, carried on the summer wind.

  Please. . . please. . .

  Shivering as the rain fell cold and hard against her skin, she opened her car door, slid inside, and started the engine immediately. Suddenly, she could not get back to the sanctuary of Patsy’s cottage quickly enough.

  And yet later that night, she dreamed that she heard them. Loud enough inside her head to awaken her from her sleep, she had bolted upright, then gone to the window to listen. It was as i
f the wind had carried the sound of voices that were not quite voices, all the way to the lake.

  Please. . .

  Please. . . help. . . us. . .

  19

  Genna was less than two miles from Doris Wright’s house when her cell phone rang.

  “How’s it going?” John’s voice cut through the static. “Gen, can you hear me?”

  “John? Bad connection. Let me call you right back.”

  Genna pulled over to the side of the road and dialed John’s number.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much. What’s up?”

  “I just heard from Dale. He met with Lani Gilbert’s parents yesterday. You’ll never guess what Lani’s given name was.”

  “What?”

  “Would you believe, Atalanta?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. So, it does make one wonder. Where’d you know your Lani from?”

  “From camp,” she replied softly. “She was at camp that summer.”

  “Gen, by any chance, was she one of the girls who was assaulted by Brother Michael?”

  “Yes. Yes, she was.”

  “Did Lani testify against him at the trial?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was so low, he could barely hear her.

  “Think back. Do you remember the names of the other girls who testified?”

  The silence was protracted and fraught with unspoken possibilities.

  Genna gave the car enough gas to move back onto the roadway, then accelerated, suddenly in a hurry.

  “Gen?”

  “I’m on my way to meet with Barbie Nelson’s stepmother. I should be there in less than five minutes,” she told him.

  “Was there a Barbie at camp when you were there?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Not that I remember. But there was a girl named Bobbie.”

  “What was her last name?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t know hardly anyone by their last names, only the first. Back then, last names weren’t important.”

  “They are now.”

  “I’ll get back to you.” Genna disconnected the call, her hands shaking. Could Lani Gilbert be her Lani, all grown up?

  She pulled into Doris Wright’s driveway and stopped the car abruptly. As she walked to the front door, she tried to pull up Bobbie’s face from her memory bank, but couldn’t. Even if she saw a photo of Bobbie as a child, would she recognize her? It had been so long ago. . .

  Doris Wright was at the door even before Genna reached her hand out to ring the bell.

  “I’m so glad you could see me on such short notice,” Genna said as she was led into a comfortably furnished living room.

  “I’ve been a wreck, worrying about this girl.” Mrs. Wright shook her head. “Just a wreck. I was hoping you were calling to give me some good news.”

  “I’m afraid right now we have no news.” Genna sat on one of the two wing chairs that faced each other across the hearth. “Mrs. Wright, I was wondering if you have a photo of your stepdaughter.”

  “Certainly,” she nodded. “That’s her, right there on the mantel.” She pointed to a silver frame that sat less than three feet from Genna’s head.

  Genna rose to look at the beaming young woman on her wedding day. Her arm was looped through that of an older man who was filled with father-of-the-bride pride.

  “Your husband?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Wright nodded. “I have more recent pictures, though. Actually, I have some from her visit in early July.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to see some photos of your stepdaughter as a child.”

  “As a child?” She frowned. “I think her mother took all of them with her when they moved back to Connecticut, but I’ll look.” She gestured for Genna to follow her into the dining room.

  “I keep all my old photos in here.” She opened the doors of the sideboard and leaned down, emerging with a lidless cardboard box. “Of course, I keep saying that I’m going to put them into albums, but I never get around to it. Now, let me see what’s in here. . . this batch seems to be mostly my daughter, Mindy. . .”

  “She and your stepdaughter are good friends?”

  “Oh, yes. It took them a while, but yes, they’re quite close now.” The woman flipped through loose photos pensively. “Oh, here’s one. I guess she was about eight here. She and her dad had gone to some scout picnic and they had some races. . .”

  She passed the photo into Genna’s outstretched hand.

  “. . . but I can’t see why you’d be interested in an old photo. Bobbie changed so much as she grew up, lost all that little girl pudginess. . .”

  “Bobbie?” Genna repeated flatly.

  “Her dad always called her Bobbie. She didn’t become Barbie until her mother took her back to Connecticut.”

  Genna held the photo up and took a good look, and her head began to reel.

  There was no question in her mind that Barbie Nelson was Bobbie-from-camp, last-name-unknown. Only now Genna was certain that she knew what Bobbie’s last name was. It was Wright. Bobbie Wright.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Wright,” Genna said, trying to ignore the weight that pressed so heavily against her chest, “but I need to make a phone call. . .”

  “Mancini,” John said as he picked up.

  “Bingo.” Genna said softly.

  “Shit.” John replied.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was hoping we were wrong about that.”

  “Why? This could very well be the thread that we’ve been looking for.” Genna walked to the far end of the living room so that Mrs. Wright would not hear the conversation.

  “I just don’t like what I see at the end of the thread, Gen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just got off the phone with Brian. I asked him to check to see when Brother Michael comes up for parole.”

  Genna’s mouth went dry.

  “It seems his parole date came and went. He’s been out since April, Gen.” John paused, then repeated, “Brother Michael has been out of prison since April.”

  When the shock had rippled through her, she cleared her throat.

  “Why didn’t we know? He’s a convicted sex offender—shouldn’t someone have been notified?”

  “Yes. Someone should have been. Something obviously fell through the cracks.”

  “What’s he been doing all this time? The first of the women disappeared weeks ago.”

  “He’s been watching. Watching and learning.”

  “Sweet Jesus. . .”

  “Exactly. Brian is faxing a list of the thirteen girls who testified against Michael at his trial, into the office. How much do you want to bet that we have a file on every one of them?”

  “But there have been twelve victims. . .”

  “And thirteen girls who testified.” He paused before adding tersely, “Counting you, there were thirteen. . .”

  The unspoken hung between them.

  “John, his brother used to live outside of Pittsburgh,” she said, her mind racing. “We lived there for a time. He—Mr. Homer—was the one who hired my father to come and preach in their church. He owned the campgrounds. Maybe he knows where Michael is.”

  “Do you remember the name of the town?”

  “Of course. We lived there for several years. It was Lindenwood. It’s right above the West Virginia state line.”

  “What’s the closest airport?”

  “Pittsburgh.”

  “Call the airport and book yourself on the first available flight. I’ll do the same, and I’ll meet you there,” John told her, adding, “I think it’s time someone paid a visit to Mr. Homer.”

  At seven-ten that evening, Genna and John were standing on the front stoop of the large, aging Tudor-style house and waited for someone to respond to their ringing of the doorbell.

  “This house always intimidated me,” Genna said in a low voice. “It was the biggest house I’d ever been in, and I thought it was a castle.”

  �
�What’s it like inside?” John rang the bell again.

  “Back then, it was dark, lots of dark wood and dark furniture.” She stepped back on the sidewalk and glancing at the heavy drapes that could be seen covering the front windows, noted, “Things don’t seem to have changed all that much.”

  John reached toward the bell to ring it one more time, just as they heard the sound of the lock being unlatched from the inside. The ornate brass doorknob turned, and the door opened only far enough for the person behind it to see out.

  “Help you?” A middle-aged woman wearing what appeared to be an old-fashioned housedress peered through the narrow opening.

  “We’re looking for Mr. Homer.” Genna smiled her friendliest smile, in spite of the fact that she had begun to tremble inside as a tide of memories threatened to wash over her. She pushed them back into their place and added unnecessarily, “Mr. Clarence Homer.”

  The woman looked warily from Genna to John, then back again.

  “He isn’t feeling well,” she announced as she began to close the door. “Not having visitors.”

  Genna stepped forward and offered her identification. “We’re with the FBI. We need to speak with him about his brother.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “He’s not here.”

  “I thought you just said that he wasn’t feeling well.” John stood behind Genna on the step.

  “Mr. Homer isn’t feeling well.” The woman spoke with exaggerated patience. “His brother isn’t here.”

  “Was he here?” Genna exchanged a quick look with John.

  “A few months back. Didn’t stay very long. Got what he came for, then left. Upset poor Mr. Homer something terrible. Poor soul hasn’t slept a night since. . .”

  “What was it that he came for?” John asked.

  “You’d have to discuss that with Mr. Homer,” the woman sniffed her distaste, “but I’m sure it had something to do with his share of his mother’s estate. He took off after less than a week and hasn’t bothered to call his brother even once since. And it’s not as if he isn’t aware of how sick the Mister is.”

  “Are you a relative, Miss. . . ?” Genna asked.

  “Miss Evans. I’m the Mister’s housekeeper.”

  “And you’ve been here with Mr. Homer for how long now?” John asked.